Lilac Wine
by Kei Tree
Summary: Sarah and the Goblin King loose themselves dancing under lilac trees. Please RR!


AN: This is a pretty little piece inspired by a Jeff Buckley cover of the lovely   
song "Lilac Wine" which is, in turn, inspired by the Nina Simone version of Elkie   
Brooks's version (the original performer). Whew! I take the characters farther   
away from their true personalities than I usually do, but the song demanded it and   
I just can't deny anything with lyrics like this. My apologies. I'd still love   
to get feedback on it, as always. Happy readings...  
  
Mistakes within are mine- my thanks to Irene for minimizing the grammatical damage   
I tend to do to my creations. She swears I'm getting better but I have my   
doubts! LOL   
  
*************************** Lilac Wine ******************************   
  
*I lost myself on a cool damp night  
Gave myself in that misty light  
Was hypnotized by a strange delight  
Under a lilac tree*  
  
The wind called to her, monopolized her dreams as the warm Atlantic wind blew   
through her lace curtains, bringing her the smell of a mist laden ocean and the   
lilac trees that grew beneath the windows at her chateau on the coast of France.   
Sarah Williams woke with the taste of wine in her mouth. She rose, chased and   
buffeted by the hypnotic breeze, and wove through sleeping felines to make her   
way downstairs.   
  
Her front door squeaked loudly as it swung open. She walked barefoot, reveling   
in the damp earth that stained her feet and the hem of her white nightgown to a   
vibrant red. Her chateau was perched at the edge of a cliff, overlooking the   
ocean, and fog curled up the side of the cliff like grape vines growing out of the   
gray waves. The same fog wrapped her lilac trees in cloud dressings as it crawled   
up the thick trunks to touch the delicate flowers that still clung to the low   
hanging branches.   
  
Sarah's deliberate tread brought her beneath those branches as the wind urged her   
to raise her slender arms over her head to trail wondering fingers through their   
petals, as if in a dream, her red feet turning lavender as they crushed the fallen   
blooms. She twirled, an ethereal ballerina, and accepted her partner's   
outstretched glove like a queen.  
  
She and the Goblin King danced beneath her lilac trees.   
  
*I made wine from the lilac tree  
Put my heart in its recipe  
It makes me see what I want to see  
and be what I want to be  
When I think more than I want to think  
Do things I never should do  
I drink much more that I ought to drink  
Because (it) brings me back you...*  
  
She tasted like a heady wine and moved like warm velvet in his arms, seductively   
molding to the harsh lines of his body like the softest of steel. Jareth laughed   
as they danced, as he sipped the bounty of her lips and bestowed butterfly kisses   
on the cream shoulders left bare by her simple cotton nightgown. The wind tickled   
the places his lips brushed with taunting tenderness.  
  
Sarah was an addiction he wouldn't cure, a treasure he couldn't keep. She was a   
woman who had matured from the flagrantly arrogant child who tempted and   
infuriated in turn. The mature woman did nothing but tempt, and the Goblin King   
was still arrogant enough to indulge in his sins.   
  
*Lilac wine is sweet and heady, like my love  
Lilac wine, I feel unsteady, like my love*  
  
He held her steady as she swayed within the net of his arms, drunk on his touch   
as fog cradled them both. Trees swayed with them under the rising wind and lilac   
blossoms clung to the waterfall of her chestnut hair. They celebrated the love   
they would never name with heady abandon as moonlight applauded their dancing and   
the stars called for an encore.   
  
*Listen to me... I cannot see clearly  
Isn't that she coming to me nearly here?*  
  
It wouldn't last, it never did, these nights of fancy, of dream kingdoms and   
balls held beneath lilac flavored music. She would fade from his arms like the   
fog that held them both, would follow sunlight into places he could not, would not   
go. For all the strength of their love, she was still the girl who had bested him  
and he was still the Goblin King.   
  
Funny, how he wouldn't have looked at her twice, shabby little impertinent child   
that she had been, if she hadn't defied him, cowed him, moved him to reorder time and   
the heavens above. But, in doing so she became the forbidden. Jareth would never   
bend again, not without breaking. He could reorder time and the heavens, could   
make the night stretch as eternal as his life, but he wouldn't.   
  
It would be so very easy to drown in Sarah Williams. The Goblin King was arrogant  
to indulge in his sins, not stupid enough to drown in them.   
  
*Lilac wine is sweet and heady where's my love?  
Lilac wine, I feel unsteady, where's my love?*  
  
He would slip away come dawn. Would fly with the slow beat of snowy wings to   
lands she was no longer welcome in. Jareth would leave and she wouldn't try to   
stop him. You can love your enemy, but you can never be with him. There are   
hidden prices to the games played Underground, especially when they involved a   
Goblin King's pride, not to mention her own.   
  
Sarah had learned humility in the Labyrinth, but she had also learned strength,   
and she took pride in both. Humility let the wind bring her beneath the lilac   
trees when he came to her; strength sustained her every morning when he flew   
away.   
  
*Listen to me, why is everything so hazy?  
Isn't that she, or am I just going crazy, dear?*  
  
The breeze retreated as fog slowly uncurled from their dancing forms to slither   
across the dew soaked grass, seeking shelter among the shadows of the ocean's   
waves. Their gentle waltz ended as the mortal and immortal swayed for another   
beat, their ordinary and extraordinary eyes locked as they shared a moment of   
perfect, if bittersweet, understanding.   
  
*Lilac Wine, I feel unready for my love...*  
  
Jareth raised her fingers to his lips. He smirked as she shivered before   
brushing his warm lips to her knuckles. His own gloved fingers caressed hers.  
  
By the time Sarah Williams had picked a path through waking felines, her stained   
nightgown brushing her cold wood floors as she made her way upstairs towards her   
bedroom at the wind's gentle insistence, the Goblin King's wings had carried   
him away from the trees, buoyed by equally helpful air currents. They both   
sought to steal a few hours sleep in their separate beds, in equally separate   
worlds, as the sun rose. They slept with the taste of lilac wine in their mouths   
though; and in the end it was enough to sustain them through the rigors of the   
day, and prepare them for the promise of the next night's dancing masquerade. 


End file.
